Posts tagged with "Barclays Center":

It’s probably best to eat before you get to the to the new Barclays Center—a can of Red Bull and a bag of chips will set you back almost $12. But at a recent sneak peek of the arena guests were treated to complimentary hors d’oeuvres, an open bar, and an up-close look at the intricate and oddly sweet-smelling building model—wait, that’s no model, that’s a cake! The confection was a tour de force by Brooklyn-based BCakeNY, who carefully rendered the delicious-looking Core-ten exterior in chocolate and cinnamon, “Your cake looks better than the actual building!” wrote one of BCakeNY’s Facebook fans. Take note architects—a model of devil’s food rather than foam core might be just the thing for your next community board meeting.

The exterior of the SHoP-designed Barclay's Center is rapidly taking shape, and developer Forest City Ratner has been announcing the upcoming acts that will perform in the arena with equal speed (plans for affordable housing at the site, however, have been delayed almost indefinitely). The Postreports that rapper Jay-Z has been named a director for the highly controversial Center, and also noted that Mr. Beyoncé has also been involved in the design of the arena's 11 luxury suites. Jay-Z is also part owner of the Nets, the arena's resident sports tenant. Ratner, meanwhile, is working to secure a liquor license for the Center, which many neighbors oppose.

Our favorite wonky MTA blog has an interesting and funny post about how quickly and easily naming rights on a public transit system can get, in this case down in Philadelphia. While we all know transit systems are in trouble and should probably go about getting money wherever they can—short of more draconian fare increases, let's hope—it is easy to go too far on the naming rights front, not only into parody but confusion. While it may be a bit unseemly that the MTA tried to charge the Yankees for the rights to have their name at a refurbished 161st stop last year, and that Barclays is actually paying up for the rights in Brooklyn, yet another advertising assault on our public lives. But SEPTA has gone a step further, renaming its Pattison Avenue Terminal to AT&T Station. Unlike the Barclays annoyance, this could be downright confusing because there is no geographical relevance here, nothing AT&T about this station. As another blogger puts it on SAS: "The whole situation raises the frightening prospect in the near future that, instead of riding the Broad Street Subway from City Hall to Pattison, people will take the Coca-Cola Trolley from Pizza Hut to AT&T."

SHoP's new designs for the Barclay's Center at Bruce Ratner's Atlantic Yards site has probably gotten the firm more attention than any of its previous ones, including its rather controversial plans for Pier 17 at the South Street Seaport. Today, Develop Don't Destroy Brooklyn penned an open-letter to the firm, calling out "Mr. Sharples, Mr. Sharples, Ms. Sharples, Ms. Holden, and Mr. Pasquarelli" for signing on to "a very contentious and troubled project that faces widespread resistance from the communities it would impact—and well beyond." Meanwhile, "Mr. Pasquarelli" sat down with the Observer to, uh, talk shop on the project and defend his firm's involvement in the project: "We gave serious consideration as to whether we wanted to do it. And I think the thing that convinced us was, after speaking with Bruce, we were convinced he really wanted to make a great building." SHoP and Barclay's collaborator Ellerbe Becket will be discussing their new designs at a special hearing in Brooklyn tonight at 6 o'clock, as will DDDB, no doubt—and us. If you can't make it for the fireworks, we'll recount them here for you tomorrow. Or follow us on Twitter, where we'll be live-blogging the main event.